The Cocoon Nebula in Cygnus - posted 7/2/06

The rich color of this nebula comes from both emission and reflection nebula types. The object sits in the star rich constellation of Cygnus and appears to be connected to several lanes of dark material. I've attempted one previous shot of this nebula which was a high resolution image taken through the LX200 (I never finished it). I like the wide field look much better as it shows off the interesting surrounds. The object has very low surface brightness and it took quite a bit of stretching to bring it out from the background. Luminance for the image was created with a combination of light through clear and Ha filters. The Ha also serves as the red channel.